But, where do you even start? What’s best practice? And how can time-poor business owners post organically on social media regularly - without it becoming a full-time job?
I could write a 30,000-word dissertation on this subject alone. Instead, I’ve highlighted four organic social media tips for small businesses that I know will yield results in the short, mid and long-term.
Here goes…
One of the biggest and most common mistakes I see from small businesses’ social media strategy is: all they seem to do is constantly post about their product or service. Pure self-promotion, over and over again.
Generally speaking, in order to engage your existing followers and to grow your social accounts with new followers, just posting about your product or service again and again just isn't going to cut the mustard. You’re going to need to be a little bit smarter.
What you need to do is almost disguise your harder, sales-focused and self-promotional posts in the midst of more light-hearted, engaging and relevant content. This content should largely still be somewhat relevant to the product or service you provide, or the industry you operate in. But, you can play about with it a bit.
The most effective way to do this is to use what are called ‘content pillars’. Aim for a minimum of three and a maximum of four to start. One of these pillars should, of course, be specifically related to your business - your product, your people, your promotion(s), whatever.
For the other pillars, focus on what might engage your audience and generate more reactions and comments than one of your business-focused posts would. Posts that generate more engagement in the form of reactions or comments usually get a higher ‘organic reach’ (e.g Facebook’s algorithm will show your post to more people).
See an example below for what I mean.
Barry and Shirley run a personalised dog collar business. For the last couple of years, their organic posts on social media have exclusively focused on the products they sell - product photos and such like. Their following has grown slowly but steadily across all social platforms over the last few years, but they want to accelerate this growth.
Barry and Shirley’s need to create content pillars so they can add some variety to their social posts, appeal to a broader audience, and ultimately reach more potential customers.
Their pillars could be:
I’m a small business owner myself. I know that they’re time poor, spinning 20 different plates at any given time, and if there’s anything you can do to make you that little bit more efficient and less stressful - you’ll do it.
So when it comes to organic social media posting, my advice is to plan ahead, even if it’s just a week in advance to start. Ideally much more in advance, but a week will do. Baby steps.
This is where your content pillars start to pay dividends, too. The pillars aren’t just brilliant for injecting variety into your posts - they’re also there to make planning your posts and content much, much simpler.
If you have four content pillars, post four posts in a week to start. One from each pillar. It’s that simple. Plan what posts you’re going to write based on your pillars. Block out a few hours one day or evening and pre-schedule them using free tools.
Hubspot provides an awesome free social media content calendar template that I’ve always found really useful. As you move forward and get better at this social media malarky, you can step it up and use an online tool like Later to plan and schedule your posts.
Consistency is key. First and foremost, I’m alluding to consistency in how often you post. Time and time again I visit the Facebook page of a small business and see they haven’t posted for five weeks. I scroll down and see that prior to that, on a single day, they posted 3 times. Then another two week gap. Then a post here, a post there. Rinse and repeat.
Not only is it not a great look for your brand or business to look like you’re going AWOL for a few weeks at a time, the lack of consistent, regular posting certainly won’t be doing your audience engagement, follower growth or organic reach any favours.
Posting regularly and consistently can:
Whatever posts you put out on social media reflects on your business or brand. If what you’ve written for a post is done slap-dash or is littered with poor grammar and spelling mistakes, for example, what impression do you think that gives off to potential customers?
Even subconsciously, consumers and potential clients will already have a slightly negative impression of your brand or business. And, again, even subconsciously, this negative impression - initially about a social post - is automatically attached to the product or service you provide, and your brand.
My advice here would be: Don’t put any post out in a rush. Take that extra 15 minutes. Leave it until later. Do it tomorrow.
Whatever you have to do, just take that little bit of extra time to craft a quality post rather than stick out a shocker. For some potential customers, that social post could be the first interaction they have with your business or brand. Make a good impression - first time, every time.
AS I’ve mentioned above, your posting schedule should be consistent. So even though I’m saying quality over quantity - and I always will - do strive to post quality posts in quantity every week.
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